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Friday, March 15, 2013

In the summer of 1993, the Devils were looking for a new goaltending coach to replace Warren Strelow and just happened to have promising young goaltender named Martin Brodeur, who they had drafted three years earlier and was ready to start playing regularly in the NHL.

Devils president and general manager Lou Lamoriello insists Jacques Caron was not hired specifically to be Brodeur’s goaltending coach.

“We were interviewing a goaltending coach. We weren’t interviewing a Marty Brodeur coach by any means,” Lamoriello said this morning. “That would be misleading everyone. When Jacques Caron came and when Marty came, the timing was perfect.”

As it just turned out, Brodeur and Caron went on to have 20 years of success working together. The Devils will honor the 72-year-old Caron, who is now mostly retired, for his two decades of service to the organization in a ceremony prior to Saturday night’s home game against the Montreal Canadiens.

Members of Caron’s family and past Devils goaltenders such as Peter Sidorkiewicz, Richard Shulmistra and John Vanbiesbrouck are expected to attend.

The irony is that on the day Caron finally has his moment in the spotlight after always being the man behind “the man”, Brodeur, now 40, won’t play in the game because he’s still working his way back from a back injury.

“It’s just an indication of how long they’ve both been here,” Lamoreillo said. “Usually an honoring comes when everybody is not around and have to come back.”

Lamoriello said Caron’s talent as a coach was in not trying to change a goaltender’s style, but in helping him improve upon the way he played.

“He’s never tried to change their style,” Lamoriello said. “He tried to just make them better at what they did well and if they didn’t do something well, he tried to show them mechanically why it would be better to be a little different. But he never tried to change anybody.”

Lamoriello also compared Caron to a “psychologist” because so much of his work was with the mental side of the game.

“He knew a way of talking to people,” Lamoriello said. “There are some people who can walk in the room and they can say something and not offend anybody. And there’s another person who can walk in a room and say the exact same thing and could offend somebody. Or somebody could talk to somebody personally and they take it out of context of what’s the reason for this. He has that way of saying something and always coming out positive no matter whether it was constructive criticism.

“That’s a gift and that was something that was very important, especially for a goaltender. It’s like a pitcher in baseball or a quarterback. Those people get criticism for correction, which is what we all need. How you accept it is the key and a lot of it is how it’s presented and the type of personality.

Although Brodeur and Caron seemed inseparable over the years until Chris Terreri eventually took over as the full-time goalie, Lamoriello said Caron had a similar relationship with all the goaltenders he worked with in the organization.

“The reason you would take it out of context that it’s different is because it was over a span of so many years, but he was the same with every goaltender,” Lamoriello said. “He had that same interaction, that same relationship and it’s just that it would be magnified with Marty because of the time. But he spent just as much time with the other people. He still does. He still talks to the young kids on the phone and Terreri and all of them. That’s a gift and that’s why we’re fortunate with Chris Terreri, who came through that mold, and that’s why we’ve got a young (Dave) Caruso (as Albany’s goaltending coach), who came through that mold, that understands how important that is.”

Jeff Frazee, who is with the team to back up Johan Hedberg while Brodeur is injured, said he talks to Caron on the phone at least once every two weeks. Caron does the same with Keith Kinkaid.

“He watches our games too and he’ll comment on those,” Frazee said. “He stays in touch pretty good with us.”

Frazee said Caron’s positive approach is what makes him effective.

“He’s an amazing person,” Frazee said. “He’ll give me a call or I’ll give him a call. He might not be on the ice with us all the time, but he’s more of a mental coach. He understands the game mentally. It’s amazing what a little talk with him will do for you. You might be feeling like you haven’t played your best or something like that and he’ll spin it around positively and make you feel like you can do this.”

About

TOM GULITTI has covered the New Jersey Devils for The Record since 2002. Prior to that, he covered the New York Rangers for four years. Gulitti joined The Record in 1998 after six years at The North Jersey Herald News. He graduated from Binghamton University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric-Literature.